Fraud Strategy Senior Manager (Debit and Payments))

We are seeking a seasoned fraud professional to lead the strategy, execution, and continuous optimization of fraud controls across debit cards, ACH-like products, and real-time payment rails (e.g., Zelle, RTP, Bill Pay). This role will own the end-to-end real-time decisioning ecosystem-including fraud rules, detection capabilities, risk assessments, and customer experience trade-offs-while partnering cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Risk, and Operations to deliver scalable, modern fraud prevention solutions.

The ideal candidate brings deep domain expertise in debit and real-time payments fraud, strong technical acumen in rules engines and analytics, and a proven ability to lead teams, influence stakeholders, and communicate complex risk narratives to senior leadership.

Key Responsibilities

• Set Fraud Strategy & Coverage: Define fraud prevention strategy across debit and real-time payment channels, including risk appetite and control coverage.
• Own Real-Time Decisioning: Design and manage fraud rules, decision logic, and detection strategies within real-time decisioning platforms.
• Lead Platform & Capability Build: Drive enhancements and implementation of fraud rules engines and decisioning platforms in partnership with engineering.
• Optimize Performance Outcomes: Monitor and improve fraud detection, false positives, and client friction through ongoing control tuning and performance management.
• Leverage Data & Models: Use analytics and model insights to identify trends, refine strategies, and improve detection effectiveness.
• Partner Cross-Functionally: Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Risk, and Operations to embed fraud controls into customer journeys and new product launches.
• Influence Senior Stakeholders: Communicate fraud risk, performance, and trade-offs clearly through strong executive storytelling.
• Lead & Develop Team: Build and manage a high-performing team of fraud strategy and analytics professionals.
• Ensure Strong Governance: Maintain disciplined control testing, monitoring, and adherence to risk and regulatory standards.

• 10 + years in fraud risk, payments risk, or financial crimes
• Deep expertise in: Debit card fraud (CNP and CP) Real-time payments (Zelle, RTP, P2P, Bill Pay and other emerging payments)
• 5+ years of people management experience leading high-performing teams
• Proven experience managing real-time fraud decisioning environments and rules strategies
• Strong experience partnering across Product, Engineering, Risk, and Operations
• Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, Finance, Computer Science, or a related field. Graduate degree preferred.

• Expertise in fraud rules engines / decisioning platforms
• Strong analytical capabilities (data analysis, segmentation, performance optimization)
• Working knowledge of fraud models / machine learning concepts and model governance
• Ability to translate data into actionable fraud strategies and business decisions
• Strong experience with analytical tools such as Python, R, SAS, SQL, and platforms such as Tableau or Power BI.

• Strong stakeholder management with ability to influence senior leaders
• Excellent communication and executive storytelling skills
• Highly collaborative with a track record of driving alignment across teams